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WBCQ 9330 (AM Broadcast) rotatable tower in Maine 500kw
- Thread starter Naysayer
- Start date
Now if they could just find something worthwhile to broadcast on it ! Reruns of long dead preachers (looking at you Brother Stair) isn't something I want to listen to, ever.
This is the problem with all these private SW stations. Preachers, nuts and burned to a crisp rock n roll oldies, all with a big helping of static and fading. Ugh.
If I want to hear oldies I can get them online in perfect stereo from literally thousands of internet radio stations !
Don't get me wrong, I listen to SW from time to time, but mostly just to the pirate stations on the 6.9 MHz band.
This is the problem with all these private SW stations. Preachers, nuts and burned to a crisp rock n roll oldies, all with a big helping of static and fading. Ugh.
If I want to hear oldies I can get them online in perfect stereo from literally thousands of internet radio stations !
Don't get me wrong, I listen to SW from time to time, but mostly just to the pirate stations on the 6.9 MHz band.
They do occasionally air baseball games, which is nice on road trips not having to hope for another FM station airing it 70 miles down the road when the signal drops out.
I found the content of WBCQ “The Planet” to be a very diverse. Nowadays, I ‘m not enthused to listen very long with shortwave broadcasts that often fade with audio distortion. Unlike collecting QSL conformations like I did in my youth, I’m now interested only in their content. After looking at WBCQ’s programming schedule, I was pleased to find that most of their content is archived for easy listening at any time. You may find one of their broadcasts like “The Lumpy Gravy Radio Show” or “Pirate Joe Extravaganzo” to your liking. Even a UFO program… Digital stole the radio show.
I seem to recall that back in the 80's and 90's Radio Nederland had something similar in Holland for its shortwave service, but with multiple rotating towers.
I think other international broadcasters back then were primarily using curtain arrays, with each site having several aimed at different areas of the world.
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Back in the 80's there were actually a lot of stations running rotatable arrays of some sort. Some were massive log-periodic yagis and some were the massive rotatable tower curtain arrays. I remember The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the UK and many others using them. Great systems but a bear to maintain. Vatican City used and I believe still does use a huge log periodic array. It saves on space of which they have very little.
Funny you mention the static, fading and worn out music. That is all SW Pirates are ...... for years and years. The heyday of good SW Pirates was the 1990's maybe into the early 2000's. Then all the good entertainment Pirates left and ever since it's music-only stations. What a sleep-fest
There were a lot of good pirate stations in the 80's as well and even before that actually. Probably one of the most famous was Radio Caroline which started off the coast of the UK aboard the ship called the Ross Revenge in 1964 to protest British restrictions on what could be played on air.
We're going to be in ME later this year. Hoping to be able to stop by their location an check it out.